Profits before patients: Wendell Potter talks to Bill Moyers about 20 years inside the health care industry with perfect Dante quote “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, maintain a neutrality.”

The event is being hosted by Jason Mesut at The Team and is being sponsored by Nick Cochrane at Zebra People with a few prizes and giveaways including copies of Balsamiq

Over the course of the evening we hope to gain insight and feedback into the first day presentations from UXLondon and the second and third day workshops from the perspective of delegates, presenters, people who ran workshops and organisers. We will also endeavour to run a couple of ‘mini’ workshops based on UXLondon workshops.

The event is open to all members of London IA and there will be no charge.

There will be refreshments and a background of music from Martin Belam and I hope Jason Mesut and myself.

Below is my pick of the UXLondon Twitter postings. I have plans to do a little bit more of a ‘visual’ thing with them but for the moment here they are as a list in no particular order – the visual will follow:

And attendees of @uxlondon were unfortunate to miss ‘Shaping the Future of Mixed Plastics’ which clashed http://tinyurl.com/m5fu5t Shame…

Conference highlight presentation from Don Norman, starting with apparent heresy: Complexity is not a problem. Complicated is. Design as activity, not artifact. Designer as facilitator, not rockstar. Start from experience, not system @peterme

users are telling you every day what trigger words they’re looking for and on what pages. Look at your search logs.

“Changes in the web don’t change the fundamentals of human behaviour”” (@jmspool)

content sucks the user towards it (this is why your content has to suck… like a vacuum cleaner)

humans = informavours

nobody goes to a website without a purpose. except web designers

It appears @jmspool is giving the exact same talk right now at #uxlondon that I saw on a roadshow 5 years ago. Still holds true, I guess.

only if you have Uniquely Identified Content (like Amazon) do you get an exception to the searching = predictor of problems rule you are *much* more likely to find what you’re looking for if you DON’T use search

pogosticking = when the user bounces between levels of the information hierarchy seeking their target content page

3 scent failure predictors: use of the back button, pogo-sticking, use of search

users look for blue & underlines. yes, it’s ugly and hard to see but we’ve trained users to look for that

what makes users confident – ‘i know where this link is going to take me’

you need to know – why are users coming to your site? what are their trigger words?

iceberg syndrome: people assume most important stuff is at top. If ‘marketing fluff’ is at top, don’t bother scrolling Book idea from #uxlondon Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products and Services http://bit.ly/rHBFN

analysing visual input (what you see) and deciding what to record is a particular kind of drawing skill

notational sketching = the act of recording things that you see in the world. Mostly for your sketchbook, less so for sharing if you have an element in your sketch that is weak or less deliberate, it attracts attention & detracts from your entire sketch The only people who care about balance in a sitemap are the IAs, users just want to find the information they need

sketching is physical thought in my book

sketching becomes a magic trick. I can draw this and you can’t. That’s a powerful thing

i agree. you can’t copy and paste sketched wireframes. I think that’s incredibly important

these are all ‘ungood’ ways of drawing a circle

i can recommend Trio Scribli pens

move the point of your arrow back just a tiny bit off centre and it will look better

avoid crosshatching in wireframes, starts to ‘pop’ too much. Use various weight of diagonal or vertical lines instead sketchiness = this is not a finished idea, I’m still thinking about this. Sketching holds the conversation back to the big picture

if you can’t see the tip of your pencil you can’t draw

carry a sketchbook all the time. practice sketching all the time. practice straight lines, squares, using hatching for tone

@pocopina haven’t heard the words ‘social media’ once at #uxlondon – lets keep it that way 🙂

Back at work after #uxlondon. A pile of business cards and receipts on my desk is slowly forming into a semblance of order. #uxlondon – had a great time and really enjoyed the talks and meeting all the UX folks. Time to process the inbox…

Sketches are a very powerful tool, much more so if you master your medium. #uxlondon – Sketching is key to the design process.

Conference highlight presentation from Don Norman, starting with apparent heresy: Complexity is not a problem. Complicated is. Design as activity, not artifact. Designer as facilitator, not rockstar. Start from experience, not system @peterme

users are telling you every day what trigger words they’re looking for and on what pages. Look at your search logs.

“Changes in the web don’t change the fundamentals of human behaviour”” (@jmspool)

content sucks the user towards it (this is why your content has to suck… like a vacuum cleaner)

humans = informavours

nobody goes to a website without a purpose. except web designers

It appears @jmspool is giving the exact same talk right now at #uxlondon that I saw on a roadshow 5 years ago. Still holds true, I guess.

only if you have Uniquely Identified Content (like Amazon) do you get an exception to the searching = predictor of problems rule you are *much* more likely to find what you’re looking for if you DON’T use search

pogosticking = when the user bounces between levels of the information hierarchy seeking their target content page

3 scent failure predictors: use of the back button, pogo-sticking, use of search

users look for blue & underlines. yes, it’s ugly and hard to see but we’ve trained users to look for that.

what makes users confident – ‘i know where this link is going to take me’

you need to know – why are users coming to your site? what are their trigger words?

iceberg syndrome: people assume most important stuff is at top. If ‘marketing fluff’ is at top, don’t bother scrolling Book idea from #uxlondon Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products and Services http://bit.ly/rHBFN

And attendees of @uxlondon were unfortunate to miss ‘Shaping the Future of Mixed Plastics’ which clashed http://tinyurl.com/m5fu5t Shame…

Conference highlight presentation from Don Norman, starting with apparent heresy: Complexity is not a problem. Complicated is. Design as activity, not artifact. Designer as facilitator, not rockstar. Start from experience, not system @peterme

users are telling you every day what trigger words they’re looking for and on what pages. Look at your search logs.

“Changes in the web don’t change the fundamentals of human behaviour”” (@jmspool)

content sucks the user towards it (this is why your content has to suck… like a vacuum cleaner)

humans = informavours

nobody goes to a website without a purpose. except web designers

It appears @jmspool is giving the exact same talk right now at #uxlondon that I saw on a roadshow 5 years ago. Still holds true, I guess.

only if you have Uniquely Identified Content (like Amazon) do you get an exception to the searching = predictor of problems rule you are *much* more likely to find what you’re looking for if you DON’T use search

pogosticking = when the user bounces between levels of the information hierarchy seeking their target content page

3 scent failure predictors: use of the back button, pogo-sticking, use of search

users look for blue & underlines. yes, it’s ugly and hard to see but we’ve trained users to look for that

what makes users confident – ‘i know where this link is going to take me’

you need to know – why are users coming to your site? what are their trigger words?

iceberg syndrome: people assume most important stuff is at top. If ‘marketing fluff’ is at top, don’t bother scrolling Book idea from #uxlondon Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products and Services http://bit.ly/rHBFN

avoid crosshatching in wireframes, starts to ‘pop’ too much. Use various weight of diagonal or vertical lines instead sketchiness = this is not a finished idea, I’m still thinking about this. Sketching holds the conversation back to the big picture

if you can’t see the tip of your pencil you can’t draw

carry a sketchbook all the time. practice sketching all the time. practice straight lines, squares, using hatching for tone

users are telling you every day what trigger words they’re looking for and on what pages. Look at your search logs.

“Changes in the web don’t change the fundamentals of human behaviour”” (@jmspool)

content sucks the user towards it (this is why your content has to suck… like a vacuum cleaner)

humans = informavours

nobody goes to a website without a purpose. except web designers

It appears @jmspool is giving the exact same talk right now at #uxlondon that I saw on a roadshow 5 years ago. Still holds true, I guess.

only if you have Uniquely Identified Content (like Amazon) do you get an exception to the searching = predictor of problems rule you are *much* more likely to find what you’re looking for if you DON’T use search

pogosticking = when the user bounces between levels of the information hierarchy seeking their target content page

3 scent failure predictors: use of the back button, pogo-sticking, use of search

Oh Carter, who art in Government (briefly),
hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come,
thy licence will be done,
on rural earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day a rather poor connection.
And forgive us our piracies,
as we forgive those who pirate against us.
And lead us not into mobile temptation,
but deliver us from mobile evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. for ever and ever. Amen

After downloading Safari 4, I am disappointed to see Apple not stick with some of the tab ideas they had in the Safari 4 beta. What they’ve returned to I find muddled and confusing. In the beta the tabs were above the address bar and this seemed quite radical for a number of people. I found it refreshing and ‘open’ – the pulling of tabs into new windows was clear and straightforward and the tools/arrows/buttons for adding a new tab, viewing the rest of your open tabs and viewing any other bookmarks in the bookmark bar were clearly positioned (see below). The beta, like Firefox, really felt like a ‘tool set’ rather than just a browser.

Now in the released version the tabs have come back to the traditional position and the position of the tools/arrows/buttons for adding a new tab, viewing the rest of your open tabs and viewing any other bookmarks in the bookmark bar are now close together, two with identical icon and, my small amount of testing, encourage mis-selection and confusion. And pulling a tab out into a window is not clear at all.

It would be interesting to know what occurred during any testing for Apple to step back from the some of the innovations of the beta.

It is said that it is more acceptable to read a newspaper at the breakfast table than a paperback novel. Why? Is it because the viewer can see something of what the reader is reading and approximately where they are in their reading but with a paperback novel it is hard to establish exactly what is being read and where the reader is? Books can seem private and cut off.

Is reading a newspaper or magazine or book at the breakfast table more acceptable than reading from a Kindle (or like), laptop or iPhone (or like)? Why? Is it because the viewer can see something of what the reader is reading and approximately where they are in their reading – be it the title, the cover, the cover story or at very least that it is a book or a newspaper etc – but when the reader is using a digital device they can’t even be sure they are actually reading and if they are reading you have no way (apart from maybe facial expressions) what they are reading? Viewer feels no sense of engagement.

Of course in some circumstances (ie dinner party) it is frowned upon to read anything but especially a newspaper or a paperback novel but you might just be able to squeeze in reading a short summary of a sporting event on your mobile phone without too much objection (or risk of never being invited again).

Likewise when attending a lecture, panel event or roundtable it is perfectly acceptable to multi task reading connected and non connected stuff from a mobile phone or laptop – the feeling is that the reader is still engaged with their surroundings, involved with the event, in the conversation – but reading a newspaper or book in this environment would give the impression of non interest, non engagement, being separate from their surroundings (even though they may be reading something directly relevant).

Like the William Gibson quote describes, in time these differentiations will become quaint references to a time when individuals discussed the digital and non-digital/’real’.

Recently I have been playing around with my CV frustrated with the standard format. I have tried out various ideas including a persona style and one based on a grid but am still scratching my chin not quite sure if I have solved a problem that as one recruiter recently offered maybe ‘doesn’t need fixing’.

There is no doubt that a growing number of design types (especially those more at the beginning and development of careers – where ultimately a strong CV is most relevant) have realised that they have got to increase chances of being ‘noticed’ whatever it might be for and the starting point is obviously been to visually enhance their CVs.

The conversation has picked up with the growing interest and spread of infographics. Fine examples are Michael Anderson’s and Greg Dizzia’s. Web Designer Depot added to the discussion with a recent post 30 Artistic and Creative Résumés that garned plenty of discussion regarding readability and inappropriateness of overkill design – ‘a CV is meant to be a document not a poster’ ‘a CV is meant to convey information… your portfolio is for showing off your creativity’. And as one creative director writes quite scathingly ‘I mostly ignore these types of vanity projects when I get them. They look like some school assignment. I want to know about you in 5 seconds. And, that comes from the text.’

There’s no doubt that hiring folk when looking through CVs look for well organised and easily skimmable documents that a decision can be quickly made on.

My advice is pull out a grid and ensure that the written words describing your successes, experiences and deeds are easily readable. If you feel you can add some visual accoutrement to it without obscuring the main information then go ahead though a good barometer is to get as much feedback as you can from recruiters and HR professionals. Some will love innovation, some will be more than non plussed.

One night I was sitting in my car outside Columbia University where my wife Shirley was studying Anthropology. While I was waiting I was listening to the radio and heard an interviewer ask ‘Now that you have reached 75 have you any advice for our audience about how to prepare for your old age?’ An irritated voice said ‘Why is everyone asking me about old age these days?’ I recognised the voice as John Cage. I am sure that many of you know who he was – the composer and philosopher who influenced people like Jasper Johns and Merce Cunningham as well as the music world in general. I knew him slightly and admired his contribution to our times. ‘You know, I do know how to prepare for old age’ he said. ‘Never have a job, because if you have a job someday someone will take it away from you and then you will be unprepared for your old age. For me, it has always been the same every since the age of 12. I wake up in the morning and I try to figure out how am I going to put bread on the table today? It is the same at 75, I wake up every morning and I think how am I going to put bread on the table today? I am exceedingly well prepared for my old age’ he said.